bjects which seemed adapted to poetical
treatment,--apparently thinking that all things were not equally
calculated to inspire the true poet's genius. Once, indeed, he ventured
to refer to "the meal in the firkin, the milk in the pan," but he chiefly
restricted himself to subjects such as a fastidious conventionalism would
approve as having a certain fitness for poetical treatment. He was not
always so careful as he might have been in the rhythm and rhyme of his
verse, but in the main he recognized the old established laws which have
been accepted as regulating both. In short, with all his originality, he
worked in Old World harness, and cannot be considered as the creator of a
truly American, self-governed, self-centred, absolutely independent style
of thinking and writing, knowing no law but its own sovereign will and
pleasure.

A stronger claim might be urged for Mr. Whitman. He takes into his
hospitable vocabulary words which no English dictionary recognizes as
belonging to the language,--words which will be looked for in vain
outside of his own pages. He accepts as poetical subjects all things
alike, common and unclean, without discrimination, miscellaneous as the
contents of the great sheet which Peter saw let down from heaven. He
carries the principle of republicanism through the whole world of created
objects. He will "thread a thread through [his] poems," he tells us,
"that no one thing in the universe is inferior to another thing." No man
has ever asserted the surpassing dignity and importance of the American
citizen so boldly and freely as Mr. Whitman. He calls himself "teacher
of the unquenchable creed, namely, egotism." He begins one of his
chants, "I celebrate myself," but he takes us all in as partners in his
self-glorification. He believes in America as the new Eden.

"A world primal again,--vistas of glory incessant and branching, A new
race dominating previous ones and grander far, New politics--new
literature and religions--new inventions and arts."

Of the new literature be himself has furnished specimens which certainly
have all the originality he can claim for them. So far as egotism is
concerned, he was clearly anticipated by the titled personage to whom I
have referred, who says of himself, "I am the first in the East, the
first in the West, and the greatest philosopher in the Western world."
But while Mr. Whitman divests himself of a part of his baptismal name,
the distinguished New Englander